That was the biggest mercy of all.
I thought I'd better get some sleep, so I found a dryish hole below an oak root and squeezed myself into it.

The snow lay deep in these woods and I was sopping wet up to the knees.

All the same I managed to sleep for some hours, and got up and shook myself just as the winter's dawn was breaking through the tree tops.

Breakfast was the next thing, and I must find some sort of dwelling.
Almost at once I struck a road, a big highway running north and south.
I trotted along in the bitter morning to get my circulation started, and presently I began to feel a little better.

In a little I saw a church spire, which meant a village.